The British defeated themselves by their circular reasoning. Christianity was necessary for civilizing the Africans; the Africans were intellectually incapable of understanding Christianity; thus, they were unable to ever be "civilized" or "converted." It is hard to say whether the missionary movement would have been successful if the British had been able to see the Africans as equal. Because they did not, their endeavor was doomed from the beginning.
Even in places where missionaries were successful in converting the Africans to Christianity, the British had trouble perceiving this "success" because their conception of Christianity was tied up with their cultural heritage. Although Reade accepted the common notion of Africa's inferior intellect, he nevertheless saw that "as long as the Church continues to mingle its own petty social laws with God's commandments, Africans can not become Christianized" (Reade, 444). Reade's petty social laws probably included polygamy, which he considered a "benefit" to Africa because death among children was so frequent and this improved the chances for survival (Reade, 444).
But in addition to larger issues like polygamy or the liquor trade, these "petty social laws" included the idea that to be Christian meant to be European - in dress, in culture, in tastes. For example, in English sensibilities, the African had not been civilized until his "nakedness," which symbolized "degeneracy and disorder, the wild and the wanton, dirt and contagion," had been covered with European clothes (Comaroff, vol. 2, 224; 236).
In 1895, three African chiefs from Bechuanaland traveled to England to persuade the government to keep their land safe from the entrepreneur Cecil Rhodes. Their arrival produced excitement all over the country. One newspaper criticized those who slobbered over "educated niggers" (Neil Parsons, King Khama, Emperor Joe and the Great White Queen: Victorian Britain through African Eyes (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 232). Other newspapers waxed eloquent in praise of the three chiefs and their purpose. All reactions exhibited the underlying belief that Africans were uncivilized and lacked Christian virtues. The three dignified African chiefs contradicted common myths. When they fed into myths, newspapers reported it with glee. For example, one newspaper reported the "childlike" behavior of the chiefs who fought over an album which had been given to them. Their behavior proved that they were not "properly" civilized (Parsons, 169).
Rev. W.C. Willoughby, the missionary who traveled with the chiefs as interpreter, counselor, and political advisor, attempted to correct assumptions about race and culture by insisting in one particular speech that the goal of missions was not to produce "Europeanised" Africans, but rather "Christianized" Africans (Parsons, 136). His sentiment was rare. Even when they expressed such a belief, few British officials, missionaries, or traders practically lived such a belief; instead, in their minds, Christianity was synonymous with English culture.
